


Pride and Joy

by strifery



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Galra Keith (Voltron), Galra Prince!Keith, Grandpa Zarkon AU, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7848316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strifery/pseuds/strifery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by youreagalrakeith's incredibly cute Grandpa Zarkon AU headcanons!</p>
<p>When Keith can't keep his Galran heritage a secret anymore, he ends up taking Lance to meet his family in the worst possible way: an undercover infiltration of the Galra mothership. However, when their mission isn't advancing as quickly as they hoped, Keith will do anything to keep his Voltron family safe...even if it means inheriting a reign he never wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And So It Goes Again

**Author's Note:**

> psssst hey go check out youreagalrakeith on tumblr bc they're really cool and kind and they deserve a ton of love
> 
> Also, I just wanted to say thank you to queenofyoursoda and stars-make-their-own-light for being awesome headcanon-making friends and bearing with me as I write this! You guys are the best! <333
> 
> and one last note: the klance will come in much stronger later, just hold out through all the plot stuff. kay? kay. :D

The dreams always came first.

Keith typically considered himself lucky to be a largely dreamless sleeper, even more so after hearing of the nightmares that often plagued the rest of his fellow Paladins. However, when he did dream, the waking results often weren't...pretty.  No, he wouldn't let out an ear-splitting shriek like Lance or spend the day in a horrible mood a la Pidge, but there was always one stubborn reminder that he hadn't spent the night as untroubled as he would've liked:

A pair of large, lavender Galra ears protruding from his head, the fur around them just as choppy and wild as his natural hair. The tips of them were flipped slightly inward rather than pointed outward, making him look more like a confused puppy than anything. That didn't stop him from jumping in surprise when he looked in the mirror, his dark irises ringed with an alien shade of gold.

"Not this shit again," Keith grumbled to his reflection after the dream's first return. He reached up to smooth his ears down, trying to focus his energy (or quintessence or whatever-the-hell you want to call it) into returning his body back to normal. After about ten minutes of deep breathing and pressing the telltale Galran ears back against his skull, he felt his human ears return in their place, leaving him to watch as his eyes slowly regained their normal color. He sighed and turned on the tap, letting the water pool into his gloved palms before he splashed it onto his flushed features.

He hadn't thought to prepare for transforming back and forth while on the Altean ship; he didn't think he needed to. After all, he hadn't transformed in years – he hadn't had  _that dream_  since he was fourteen, huddled in his Garrison bunk with the thin military sheets pulled over his head as the ears pushed their way through his hair. So, yeah. He was totally and unavoidably fucked.

The preceding dream was always the same: two blurry figures stood over him, their images only coherent enough for him to make out a pair of shining smiles. He was picked up, and he felt the sudden sensation of being incredibly small as he was handed off to another pair of strong arms.

_"Look at him,"_  cooed a voice he couldn't recognize, _"Isn't he perfect?"_

_"Look at those ears,"_  said another voice, this one rough with old age. " _With the size of those things, he should be able to hear Voltron coming from a wormhole away!"_ Despite their comments, the owner of the voice was clearly beside themselves with elation.

_Nonsense, Haggar,"_  came yet another disembodied voice, this one terrifyingly recognizable. Keith's dream self was shifted in the hold of his occupant, and he found himself staring into the triumphant yellow gaze of Sendak, one of the most elite commanders in the Galra empire. Beside him, the witch Haggar came into view, her terrible smile crooked with joy. Despite his waking feelings, happiness flooded his dream self, and he felt himself smile. Sendak matched his expression with a grin of his own. _"He'll grow into them soon enough."_

_"As you did yours?"_  the witch retaliated, her gaze rising from Keith to Sendak's own relatively large set of Galran ears. Keith let out a giggle at her remark, the sound clear and bright as it rang through his dream. That was another thing about the dream; he never had the feeling of being his own age, or even the small age he had been when it first occurred. He was always a baby. A cheerful, giggly baby being smiled at by some of the most evil beings in the galaxy. So, yeah, he could add that to the growing list of things concerning him.

_"Enough of your taunting,"_  a booming voice above dream!Keith commanded, and another wave of glee crashed through his consciousness. He looked up, and there above him was the face of Zarkon, the emperor's stony face curled into an expression of serene pride. _"Regardless of his features, my grandson will make a flawless heir to the Galran throne."_  He turned to face the baby Keith, who made a noise of contentment as Zarkon reached out with one hand to gently flick the floppy tip of his ear into place. " _Even if his ears are bigger than the empire itself,"_  he concluded, amusement laced through his gravelly voice.

The dream always stopped there, leaving Keith to jolt awake in his bed, the laughter of the Galran king ringing in his ears. His now-purple, fluffy, still-floppy ears.

He knew he'd have to tell his teammates – how could he not? He couldn't very well pledge his complete honesty to them while pulling down the sleeves of his jacket to cover the patches of purple trying to climb up his arms. Besides, his secrecy could lead to complications in forming Voltron, and the last thing Keith was going to do was let his personal problems screw over the fate of the universe.

He just didn't expect to have to tell them over breakfast.

\---

The morning showed no signs of being anything out of the ordinary when Keith walked into the castle's dining room: Hunk was up and in the kitchen with Coran, adding more edible elements to the Altean's dishes when he wasn't looking. Pidge was seated at the table in her usual spot, fiddling with the wires in her Garrison-issued laptop at a pace that suggested she had never really been to sleep. Across from her, Allura and Shiro were talking animatedly about the small planet the team had liberated from the Galra the day before, breaking conversation every few moments for one of them to stifle a yawn.

Knowing that Lance would saunter in a few moments later, loud as ever, Keith took a seat a few spaces down from Pidge's makeshift workstation and leaned against his chair, taking a deep breath as he let his head fall back and closed his eyes.

"You okay there, Keith?" He opened one eye to find Hunk looking at him, one eyebrow raised in concern as he ladled out some dish that looked like a mix of pink goop and scrambled eggs.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, totally. Just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, y'know?" Hunk gave him an understanding nod, and Keith thanked whatever god was listening that he didn't pry any further. In truth, Keith had been up for around what he figured was about four hours already, choosing to spend his time after reverting back to human form lying on his bed and riding out the wave of old memories brought on by the reoccurring nuisance that was his dream. But Hunk didn't need to know all that. No one on the ship did, at least, not until he was ready.

Speaking of reoccurring nuisances, Lance chose that moment to swagger into the room, his eyes and smile both way too bright for someone who just woke up.

"Who's got two thumbs and is neck deep in alien cologne?" he cheered as he took a seat next to Keith, lacing his fingers behind his head.

"Is that what that is?" Pidge retorted, her face wrinkling in disgust. "I thought Coran had just overdone it on the space Windex."

"You can never use too much space Windex!" came Coran's cheerful call from the kitchen,  though everyone could hear him subsequently turn to Hunk and ask what exactly a "Windex" was. Keith sniffed the air curiously, and he must have made a face, because Lance frowned at him.

"What's the matter, Keith?" His voice was thick with bravado, but Keith swore that he saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. "Is my awesome superiority starting to get to you? Don't worry, I won't be offended if you have to move; I'd hate for that mullet of yours to get washed out in my flawless glow." Keith didn't answer for a second, instead raising a hand to his nose to block the heavy scent of chemicals that was starting to make his nose twitch.

"You smell like a fuel tank," was his only reply, the remark deepening Lance's frown. The building itch in Keith's nose grew as the blue paladin pouted beside him, taking an indignant bite of his egg-gruel.

"Yeah, well, we'll see how much action this fuel tank gets when we stop at our next planet," he grumbled through his food, earning him a warning _"Lance,"_  from Shiro. He shoveled a couple more forkfuls into his mouth. "Hey, Hunk, this Tubby-Custard stuff is pretty-"

_"Achoo!"_ Keith suddenly sneezed, loudly enough to make all his friends around the table jump, and, unfortunately for him, with enough power to make his Galra ears burst from the top of his head with an unceremonious _fwoosh_.

His long dark hair fell around him, knocked out of place by the offending purple features and framing his face as gold-ringed eyes looked out at the table full of his friends staring at him in shock. Many of their mouths hung open, either from his sudden transformation cutting them off mid-sentence or their faces simply going slack with disbelief. Keith stared back, unsure of what to say or how to even begin piecing together a defense.

After a moment (or what felt like hours from Keith's petrified perspective) of damnable silence, Shiro ended up being the first to speak.

"Gesundheit."

\---

And that's how Keith found himself seated alone on a bench in the castle's medical bay, his ears pricked straight up with tension as his fellow paladins, joined by Allura and Coran, stood before him. Each was watching him carefully with a different expression as Coran probed at his Galran features with the Altean equivalent of a tongue depressor. His ears flicked absentmindedly at each contact, the fur around them fluffing in discomfort when his mouth was pushed open, revealing a few jagged fangs trying to evolve from his teeth. 

"Alright, Coran," Shiro finally cut in, "Enough with the popsicle stick." Coran relented at the black paladin's request, though he looked over the tool in his hand with a new sense of confusion, mouthing the silent question of "...popsicle stick?" Shiro took a seat beside Keith, the latter reflexively shoving himself further down the bench. Shiro's expression grew sad as he watched the way Keith shrunk from him with concern. "Keith..." he began.

"Hang on, wait, I got this," Hunk volunteered, his tone as relaxed as ever. He took a deep breath ceremoniously before suddenly shoving Keith back towards Shiro, taking the now empty spot on the bench to successfully sandwich Keith in between himself and Shiro. "Okay, continue." Shiro gives him a small smile in thanks before turning to Keith, who now looked more like a disturbed cat than a member of the deadliest race in the galaxy. 

"Keith," he started again, his gaze unflinching as Keith's eyes hesitantly met his own. The Galran pigment was starting to spread to his sclera, turning the whites of his eyes a pale yellow color. "When did this first start happening?" The red paladin's defiant glare softened into one betraying guilt, a guilt that anyone could tell had been building within him for years. 

"If I'm being honest with you...," he began. "I don't remember it ever starting or stopping. I've been back and forth in this half-and-half stage for as long as I can remember; never human enough to stop it, but never alien enough for it to be permanent." He looked up from the floor, looking above the eyes of his friends to stare at the blue-lit ceiling. 

"But you've never seemed to have a problem concealing it before," Allura interjected, the lack of anger in her voice surprising Keith. "Why would something as small as a sneeze out you now?" He took a deep sigh and scanned the room, habitually checking for any signs of mistrust from his teammates; he found none, and the revelation left him surprisingly relieved. Even Lance wasn't saying anything, the rowdiest paladin instead patiently standing off to Hunk's side with his arms folded. 

"Alright, well, I suppose there's no reason to keep it a secret now: I've been having this dream-"

"Ew." He should have known better than to trust Lance to be silent for long. He shot Lance a glare, and Pidge responded in kind by delivering a swift punch to the taller boy's gut. Keith gave Pidge a slight grin, his lips stretched awkwardly over his fangs. If she noticed, she didn't show it, as the youngest paladin met his expression with her usual lopsided smile. With Lance doubled over and groaning in the background, Keith felt it safe to continue his long-overdue explanation.

"I've been having this dream for a while now. It only reoccurs every couple of years, and it's always the exact same dream, but every time I wake up after having it, I've lost some of my human traits." He let his ears fold backwards, almost out of embarrassment. "The ears are usually the first to go."

"Dreams can be powerful things, Keith," Coran added, his gloved hand coming up to fiddle with the end of his mustache; a sign that meant to the rest of the group that the dutiful advisor was about to go off on another one of his tangents. "Especially if they tend to crop up more than once. Why, I once dreamt for a month straight that my mother was chasing me around the castle in her favorite floral apron while threatening to flatten me with her rolling pin and bake me into a cake. Turns out, I had forgotten to send off her birthday gift all along." Shiro raised an eyebrow at the strange example, but Keith remained intrigued.

"But you got them to stop, didn't you?" Coran  nodded.

"Oh yeah, they up and disappeared the night after I'd finally shipped her present off; haven't had the same dream since."

"In that case," Allura supplied, ever the more focused of the Altean duo, "Maybe if you told us what your dream has been about, we can figure out a way to stop it once and for all." Keith smiled at her, feeling that he likely had a few too many teeth to do so properly, but he nevertheless hoped that his gratitude came across well enough. She really was taking all of this like a champ.

"If you say so. It always starts with these two figures..." He recounted his dream to his team members, pressing on despite his growing dread of their reactions. He stumbled over his words when he saw Shiro's eyes widen out of the corner of his eye after he mentioned the way Sendak and Haggar proudly fawned over him, and altogether stopped breathing when he got to the part about Zarkon calling him "a flawless heir" to the Galra Empire.

When he was done, Keith found himself afraid to look up, worried to see the disgust and betrayal his friends would undoubtedly feel towards him reflected in their eyes. He flattened his ears even further against his head, as if he were hoping to make them disappear altogether. He scratched at his arm, bare and cold in nothing but his gray athletic shirt, the growing patches of purple skin out and obvious; Keith had never felt so exposed.

"So," came Lance's voice, suddenly seeming closer than where Keith had last seen him standing. "You're like a Galra prince, then, right? Unless I completely misunderstood the whole 'grandson' and 'heir to the Empire' part." Keith looked up, and found himself struck by the sincerity of Lance's expression. The blue paladin was standing directly in front of him, looking down at his seated form with his head tilted slightly in consideration and...curiosity? There was no disgust in his eyes, no contempt; just the strain of trying to understand. After a few seconds of being submerged in Lance's gaze, Keith managed to find an island of control to stay on long enough for him to find his words.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. I am the half-human grandson of Zarkon, and the heir by birth to the Galra Empire." He turned his gaze to Allura, who was watching him with an unreadable expression. "You can slap me now." Her poker face was broken by his sudden claim, and though worry shot through her crystal eyes, Keith could tell she was trying not to laugh.

"Slap you? Why would I ever do that?" Keith pricked up his ears, the floppy parts of them straightening just enough to make him look more like a quizzical German Shepherd than a sadsack teenager.

"Because..." he supplied carefully, his regular obliviousness creeping back into his voice, "I'm related to literally the worst person in the universe? The guy that destroyed your home and enslaved the Balmera and has probably done either one of those things or both to pretty much every planet in the galaxy for the past 10,000+ years?" This time, Allura did laugh, her incredulous snort shattering the tense knot in Keith's chest to pieces.

"Keith, that isn't your fault! It's not like you did any of those things."

"But I'm the heir."

"Well, I mean, you obviously don't want to be, do you?" Pidge chimed in, pushing her glasses further up on her nose. "I mean, you _are_  here, on an Altean ship, risking your skin every day for the sake of the universe."

"Pidge is right," Hunk added, giving Keith a playful shove that ended up knocking him into Shiro, who steadied him with a reassuring smile. "Blood related or not, I'd say you're about as anti-Galra as it gets." Keith blinked once, then twice, and Lance couldn't help but feel a surge of deja vu back to the night he'd tried to teach Keith his "Voltron" cheer.

"But...I'm the heir."

_"Ay dios mio,_  Keith, we don't _care!_ " Lance exclaimed, one hand coming up to run through his short brown locks in frustration.

"Well, I mean, we do care a _little_ ," Pidge chirped, her words tumbling forward almost too fast for her mouth to form them. "But that's only because this now raises a lot more questions about, you know, where you came from as Zarkon's heir, who your parents were, how you managed to end up on Earth, not to mention _why_  you came to Earth in the first place, though I can't say I've ever thought of Zarkon's ship as the most ideal place to raise a child and speaking of which, can I touch your ears? They look _really_  soft and I was just wondering–"

"Pidge," came Shiro's gentle reprimand, the team leader speaking up for the first time since Keith's retelling of his dream. "You're rambling." The green paladin's face lit up a soft shade of red as she sheepishly threw a hand behind her head to scratch at the short tufts of hair at the nape of her neck.

"Sorry, sorry," she apologized, amber eyes boring unflinchingly into Keith's now fully-golden ones. "Got a little carried away." Keith met her apology with a soft smile of his own.

"No, it's alright; I've still got a lot of explaining to do." Shiro looked from him to Allura, his eyes scanning over the standing paladins before meeting hers once more. The two shared a nod, and Allura sank to the floor, her skirt fanning out gracefully as she sat. Pidge and Lance did the same, crossing their legs and looking to Keith expectantly as children did when expecting a bedtime story.

"We've got nothing but time," Shiro concluded, his words tender but final, as if he were trying to get across to Keith that he had no choice but to share the full truth with them without scaring him. Keith couldn't say that he minded in the slightest; it felt good to finally have people in his life worth trusting with his most colossal secret.

"Alright," he conceded, and Coran clapped his hands together in delight.

"Right then! You all stay right here, and I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?" Allura asked, looking up at her advisor through her silvery bangs. Coran twirled the end of his mustache around one finger, puffing out his chest proudly.

"If there's anything my dear mother ever taught me other than never to forget her birthday, it's that there's no better way to get the old storytelling juices flowing than with a steaming cup of Arusian tea! Numbs the lips and strengthens the mind!" Keith sneezed again as he left the room, this one replacing his awkward mix of human teeth and protruding canines with a full set of Galra fangs. He ran his tongue over the new appendages and frowned.

"I never thought I'd say this about Coran's cooking, but I think I'm going to need a couple helpings of that."


	2. Scheming and (Not) Dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which pillow nests are great for exposition, Allura is up all night to get secretive, Shiro spends most of his morning trying to get Pidge to Calm The Fuck Down™, and everything gets a little gayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why does this feel like it took 3019293438 years to write 
> 
> anyway, enjoy! special thanks to youreaglarakeith and ralligay on tumblr for being really sweet and amazing people and also dealing with my paranoia over keith's ears >w

By the time Keith had begun his story, the group had moved to the common room, with Allura, Coran, and Shiro settled on one of the couches while the younger paladins gathered on the floor. Pidge and Hunk had put together a large nest of pillows and blankets, insisting that Keith sit in the middle of it while the rest of them circled around him.

"I was born on the ship," Keith started, his arms and legs latched around a pillow. Lance was sprawled out beside him, his head nearly resting against his thigh as his long limbs took up most of the room to Keith's right. On his left, Pidge was leaned back against a massive green body pillow she'd picked up at one of the miscellaneous ports they'd visited, for once not tinkering with any kind of gadget or impatiently wiping at her glasses. He squeezed the pillow against his chest. "My mother...I'm pretty sure she was human. My dad was sent on some mission to Earth from Zarkon, and I guess he just...brought her back."

"So your dad was Zarkon's son, huh?" Hunk asked, laid out on his stomach. He took a sip of his tea before grimacing, pausing, and taking another contemplative sip. Keith nodded.

"Yeah, the Prince of the Empire." Keith's mouth turned upward into a sad smile. "I don't remember either of their faces, but I remember little things about them. I know I liked playing with my father's crown, or watching the way my mother's skirt moved when she walked, but other than that..."

His smile fell into a hard frown, and he glanced around the room at his friends' anticipating faces.

"The people I spent the most time around were Zarkon's court. Haggar, Sendak, Prorok, all of them..." He met Shiro's eyes for a moment, trying to gauge his reaction as his nails dug into his pillow. "I grew up thinking of them like family, with no idea of all the terrible things going on all around me." Keith went silent for a moment as he felt his ears droop in shame; he found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he could rip them right off. 

"And your relationship with Zarkon?" Shiro encouraged, his voice soft and careful. 

"He was... _is..._ my grandfather." His chin sunk lower into the pillow. "He doted on me from the day I was born. I was the heir of his heir, the future of the Empire, wrapped up into one fragile little bundle." Keith fell onto his back, propping up his knees and staring at the ceiling. "And when my parents died...I never left his side." 

"Keith, you don't have to-" Allura began, a motherly sympathy creeping into her voice.

"No, no, it's okay, really," he insisted. "I don't want to have to keep anything from you guys anymore." He sat up again, his yellow-tinted eyes wide with sincerity. "You guys are my family now. I want you to know you can trust me, even when I'm-" He held up his hand, turning it so that the light caught the lavender pigments crawling up his arm and spreading onto his palm. "...like this."

Pidge sat up from her pillow then, her eyes fixed on Keith, and for a moment, the red paladin feared that she was going to hit him. Instead, she did something he'd expected even less: the youngest paladin calmly removed her glasses, set them aside, and lunged at him, throwing her arms around his neck. 

" _WE LOVE YOU TOO, KEITH!"_ she screamed in his ear, making them both point straight into the air. 

"Oh no, no way," Lance protested, rolling out of his position to stalk over to Keith's position in the pillow pile, the suddenness of his and Pidge's reactions making Keith's hair stand on end. "You are  _not_ out-hugging me here." He dropped down into the pillow pile, taking up Keith's open side and placing both hands on the flustered half-Galran's shoulders before forcing him into a hug even tighter than Pidge's grip on his neck. "You see this, Keith? This is how a real bonding moment is done.  _This_ is how you cradle someone in your arms, especially if they're a fragile baby like you." 

_"Lance."_

"R-relax, Shiro, I'm just messing with him!" 

"If that's how you cradle someone, God forbid we ever let you get your hands on a baby," Pidge quipped, leaning on Keith even more now that she was being held in place by Lance's iron hold on him. The blue paladin looked ready to shoot back his own poorly-thought out remark when Hunk interrupted him.

"Oh, are we doing this? Is this a hugging challenge? Because if this is a hugging challenge, no offense to you guys, but I'm going to wipe the floor with you all." Keith couldn't even protest; his face was being mercilessly squished into Lance's chest. Luckily for him, most of that morning's cologne had faded off the young pilot's clothes, leaving him with a thin layer of chemical scent covering a much deeper smell of clean water and Altean soap. 

Maybe it was their sudden proximity, or maybe it was the Galra hormones that had undoubtedly been jolting through his body all week, but nonetheless Keith wanted to tell him he smelled good. Keith wanted to tell him that he hoped that he never used that repulsive cologne again, and that if he could, he would bury himself in that polished, pampered, trying-too-hard scent that was so unmistakably  _Lance_  that nearly made him crazy. He wanted to thank him too, to thank him for staying still as he recounted his dream and his lineage and the fading memories of his parents. He even thought that he wanted to thank him for cracking jokes back in the med bay, for not letting the revelation Keith was so terrified of admitting change his demeanor towards him in any way; he wanted to thank him for his acceptance.

"You smell like a goddamn shower. And not the good kind either; the too-clean kind that make people uncomfortable." Fuck yeah, Keith. Nailed it.

Lance gave him the same pouty frown he'd had in the dining room, all traces of affection gone.

"Okay, Flopsie-Mopsie," he said as he shoved Keith and Pidge back, the force of which flipping one of Keith's ears inside out like a dog's. "I _tried_  being nice to you because of this whole emotional moment we've been having here, but _clearly_  Galra blood hasn't made you any less of the same human asshole." Keith frowned back at him as Pidge crawled into the background, watching the two teens with scheming eyes, as if she knew something they didn't.

"That's not my name, you know," he said, defense rising in his voice. Lance reached out and flicked his fellow paladin's ear back into place.

"Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that, buddy, while you're out here rocking that dog-ear." Keith rolled his eyes until they landed on Allura, who was still sitting with Coran at her side, her eyes narrowed and locked on him in a way that immediately flared his nerves once more. The only reaction he could say he had feared at the same level, if not a little more, than Shiro's was hers; Keith had spent many of his waking hours since the dream's return imagining the princess's reaction to his secret. Unsurprisingly, they had all run the desolate gamut between never speaking to him again and having him tossed out of the airlock.

Now, with her looking at him like a test subject, he was starting to wonder if she was going back on her gentle understanding from earlier.

"Allura?" he asked tentatively, and she blinked, her two-toned eyes widening as if she'd just realized she was staring. "Did I do something wrong?" Her look of surprise softened into one of calm reassurance.

"No, Keith, there's nothing wrong. I was just thinking..." The Altean princess stood, tossing her cloud-like hair over her shoulder. She went silent for another moment, the paladins' eyes fixed on her before she blinked again, once more looking like she'd only just realized her surroundings. "Just thinking!" she chirped again, flashing the group a bright smile before turning on her heel and leaving the room, her dress flowing behind her. The group watched her leave in silence before turning to each other, wearing matching expressions of bafflement.

"...that was weird. Was that weird to anyone else?" Hunk asked, breaking the room's silence. A chorus of "uh-huh"s answered him back as Keith turned to Coran.

"Are you _sure_  I didn't do anything wrong?" The advisor shook his head.

"Nope, not a thing! And I'd stop worrying if I were you; cancels out the effects of the tea." Keith took a glance towards the floor, where his untouched tea cup sat nestled between the pillows.

"Yeah...sure. Just wanted to check." Coran seemed to sense the lingering fear in his voice.

"Keith, Allura's fine, trust me."

"Yeah, but I don't know _how_  she's so fine. If I'd found out that one of my friends was related to the dude that killed my dad, destroyed my home, and enslaved every planet within a 500-mile conquering radius, I'd be at least a little miffed." Coran stroked his mustache in thought.

"I suppose so, but look at me. I don't seem mad at you, do I?"

"Well, no, but..."

"And if _I'm_  fine and I've been through just about the same trauma as her, I think it's safe to assume the princess is doing just as well unless she says otherwise." He looked back towards the direction Allura had gone. "Knowing her, her brain's already firing away, planning the liberation of the next planet."

Keith knew there was no sense in arguing with Coran any further, so he gave the advisor a noncommittal nod and laid back down in the pillow pile, flipping onto his back so that half of his torso took up Pidge's body pillow.

"Alright, so, now that that's over," Hunk began, rolling away from his own pillow. "What does everyone say to some post-breakfast-slash-emotional-backstory-reveal brunch?" Lance grinned.

"I'm in!" He stood, taking a light blue blanket with him and wrapping it around his shoulders.  "C'mon, Pidge!"

"Hang on," the green paladin said dismissively, getting up and turning in the direction of her room. "Let me get some more of my equipment so I can be working on that at the table."

Shiro reached out and ruffled her hair as she walked by him, calling out to her, "Don't you ever take a break?"

"What about you, Shiro?" Lance asked as the oldest of the paladins stood. "You coming with?" He shook his head, his white tuft of hair swaying in the air.

"Not today, guys, I'd rather not overstuff myself; I think I'm gonna hit the training room instead." The boys shared a look, then shrugged.

"Suit yourself. C'mon, Keith, let's go grab some-" Lance, for once, cut himself off, his voice dying away as he looked to the red paladin, who was fast asleep among the pillows. He smiled down at his sleeping face, the dark-haired teen looking completely at ease for the first time since...well, ever.

He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen, telling Hunk to follow him out of the room as both boys stepped quietly around their sleeping friend. However, as Hunk passed him and entered the hallway, Lance found himself stopped in the doorway. He looked wistfully back at Keith's sleeping form, the sight bringing a warm flush to his cheeks. _He's so cute when he shuts up. Especially with those big puppy ears of his._

Pulling his phone from his pocket and checking to make sure Hunk was still en route to the kitchen, Lance darted back to the room's center, hovering over Keith just long enough to snap a quick picture. He couldn't bottle this moment as he wanted to, but he figured that an impromptu photo opt was close enough.

"Lance!" Hunk cried from the hallway, startling the tall boy and making his focus immediately dart to Keith, who was thankfully undisturbed.

"I'm coming! I just...uh...forgot this mug!" he called back as quietly as possible, bending down to grab Keith's untouched cup of Coran's strange tea. He hurried back to the doorway, turning around to take in one last glance at his sleeping rival.

"Sweet dreams, buddy," he said finally, turning on his heel and leaving Keith to rest, his sleep blissfully free of any dreams.

\---

The next morning, Keith rolled out of bed, grateful to feel his hair tickling the tips of his human ears. Looking in the mirror, he could see faint lavender stains against his skin, the Galra pigment not quite faded from his body after spending so much of the previous day transformed.

He still couldn't say that he was proud of his lineage, and honestly, he didn't think anyone was expecting him to, but nevertheless he felt a little more comfortable looking in the mirror today than he had ever before.

"Morning everybody," he said with a yawn as he strode into the dining room.

"Hey, Keith's human again!" Hunk cheered before glancing at the faded areas of purple streaking across his skin. "Well, mostly." Keith grinned at him appreciatively before giving Shiro a nervous glance, his anxiety unraveling as the black paladin gave him his usual "proud father" smile.

He was leaned over to watch Pidge work on dismantling her laptop when Allura hurried in in her bodysuit, her hair tucked in a commanding bun. Everyone at the table visibly tensed, awaiting her debriefing of whatever attack the castle was facing.

They all watched her carefully as she rushed into the kitchen, emerging seconds later with a strange fruit clutched in her palm that Keith had learned was basically the Altean equivalent of an apple. Her eyes were steely and focused straight ahead as she stalked back out of the room; clearly she had been awake for hours.

"Has she been up like that all night?" Shiro asked Coran as he poured the team tall glasses of juice. He shrugged, but Pidge nodded, gripping what looked like the severed screen of her laptop in one hand.

"Yeah, she has. I saw her messing with the castle settings in the pilot bay a few hours after everyone else had turned in for the night." Shiro raised an eyebrow.

"And what were _you_  doing in the pilot bay in the middle of the night?" She gave him a noncommittal shrug.

"Trying to see if there was anything expendable I could use for parts; holographic laptop displays don't build themselves, you know."

"Pidge, when was the last time you got some sleep?" She set the laptop screen down and pushed her glasses further up her nose.

"Well, that depends: what day is it?" Shiro blinked, his expression turning blank before falling to give the green paladin a look the group had given the nickname "Shiro's Disappointed Father™" face.

"Pidge, go to bed."

"What?! I'm not even tired!" Pidge's protesting faded into the background as Keith found his attention drawn back to the hallway Allura had disappeared through, the dim blue light of the ceilings spilling into the open room.

"You know she's not mad at you, right?" Lance said, making him jump; for once, he hadn't heard him come in. He felt his ears disappear, his hair falling over the area where they had been as Galra ears shot to the top of his head with an audible _"fwoosh"_. He frowned up at Lance, who's grin was nothing short of shit-eating as he leaned against the table.

"Lance, Christ, don't _do_  that!" he complained loudly, his hands automatically coming up to pat his ears down. Lance ignored him, instead breaking into a childish fit of laughter.

"Ah, no," he replied, rubbing at his eyes. "No, now I _have_  to do that, all the time, because that was great." Keith took his hands down, the downturned tips of his ears straightening as they folded back in irritation.

"Fucker."

"I embrace my title." He clapped a hand on Keith's shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze that sent a jolt of warmth through Keith's body and straight to his face. Lucky for him, Lance didn't seem to notice as he went on. "Look, man, I know you're nervous about the whole Galra thing, but I'd trust her on this one; if she says she's fine, she's fine."

"You're smitten, you'd trust her with anything." For whatever reason, admitting that out loud made his chest hurt, the sensation growing when Lance sighed wistfully.

"That I would, Keith, that I would." His dreamy look dissolved, replaced with his usual confident smile. "But seriously, do you really think she would lie about how she felt about something like this?" He didn't, but he shrugged anyway.

"Dunno." His answer must not have satisfied Lance, because the taller boy frowned and grabbed him by the arm, hoisting him out of his chair with a strength he didn't know he had.

"Alright, c'mon."

"Wh-what?! Where are we going?!" He tried to swat at Lance with his other arm, the feat surprisingly hard with Lance pulling him out of the room.

"To find Allura, because clearly, you need to hear _once again_  that everything is fine so you can stop being a broody pissbaby and go back to being a broody pissbaby." Keith grumbled out a string of insults as Lance led him down the halls, his grip on his arm not hard enough to hurt him, but unbreakable all the same.

"Dude, wanna lighten up on the death grip a little?" Keith complained, earning him a glare.

"Oh, I'm sorry, would you like me to hold your dainty little hand instead?" Keith sneered back at him, his fangs glinting under the castle lights.

"No." _Yes_. "Whatever, let's just go."

They finally found the princess in the pilot bay, the castle holo-screens open to a map of the ship's current location. She looked away from the console to give the boys a welcoming smile.

"Keith, Lance, good morning!" She leaned back behind the console and typed something into the keyboard, the screen reacting and drawing a white line from the ship's location to an unlabeled point. "Sorry, I couldn't stay for breakfast, I'm in the middle of something; did Coran send you after me?"

Keith didn't speak, instead squinting at Lance, who grinned.

"Actually, no, Princess, we're here because _Keith_ -" he emphasized his name, tilting his head towards Keith far enough that the ends of his hair tickled his ears and made them twitch. "-wanted to talk to you about something." Her mouth pressed into a focused line.

"Hm. Can it wait just a tick longer? I fear that if I stop now, I'll risk talking myself out of this." The two boys shared a look as she glanced back up at them, and she gasped as if she were noticing them for the first time. "Oh! Keith! Look at that, you're human again!" Her eyes trailed upward, where his folded ears had finally stilled. "Well, almost."

"What exactly are you doing over there?" Lance asked carefully.

"And why do you think you would talk yourself out of it?" Keith continued.

"Well, you see, it'd be rather risky..." Allura's explanation trailed off into a series of quiet mutters as she worked the controls, pulling up a schematic of the Blue Lion and checking what seems to be a list of battle statistics before closing the window again. Keith wondered if she had even fully heard them. "Certainly nothing we've tried before...if I could find a way to enhance the armor somehow...no, no, we've got the Yellow Lion for that..." Keith was debating on whether or not to grab Shiro and bring him there to have him force Allura to rest as he had Pidge; it seemed that sleep had been in short supply among the crew within the last few weeks.

"Lance," Keith whispered, leaning towards his teammate. "Are girls nocturnal?"

"No," he whispered back, "Only the ones in our lives."

"Keith!" Allura said suddenly, making the red paladin's ears unfold and shoot straight into the air. As she spoke, she didn't take her eyes off of a wall-sized screen filled with intricate coordinates. "What exactly were the terms on which you left the Galra mothership?" He shrugged.

"I didn't really leave on any 'terms'. I just kinda got fed up one day and took the first pod outta there when no one was looking." Lance's jaw dropped.

"You mean to tell me that despite the fact that even _now_ , with Bayards and Lions and a fucking castle that shoots lasers, we can barely get out of that metal shitpile alive, you, as a _ten-year old boy_ , managed to just _run away?!"_ His incredulous screech grated at Keith's hyper-sensitive eardrums, making him wince, but he gave Lance a nod anyway, secretly reveling in the streak of envy that dashed through his eyes.

"And what did Zarkon do when you left?" the princess pressed on, ignoring Lance's outburst entirely. His ear twitched in annoyance as he recalled the memory.

"He sent an entire fleet after me. I had to hide out on all kinds of planets, hitching different rides on shuttles and cruiser ships until I finally outran them." Regret shot through his heart. "I left a lot of destruction in my wake; anywhere where I was last seen was searched and seized, and when I wasn't found, either enslaved or destroyed." Allura took her eyes off the console briefly to give Keith the look of motherly sympathy that he'd often become the victim of over the past two days.

"Keith, it's not your-"

"No, _no_ , Allura, this time it is my fault. _All_  my fault." His ears drooped, the low tips brushing against his forehead. "That's why I joined the Garrison in the first place. I had this whole plan laid out from the time I was ten: I was going to start over, to train hard and work my way through the ranks so I could become a fighter pilot. From there, I wanted to lead missions through space, liberating all the planets under my grandfather's rule."

"You mean like a paladin of Voltron?" Lance cut in, and Keith frowned at him.

"Well, yes and no. I was going to be a part of the military, y'know? Using guns and lasers and defending the innocent from evil." This time, Allura leaned out from behind the console's floating panels, her flat look towards him matching Lance's to convey the same silent message: _"Seriously, Keith?"_

"So..." Lance supplied again, "Like a paladin. Of Voltron." Keith paused for a second, the gears turning in his head as he realized the point that his companions were getting at. He blushed in embarrassment, his flush a dark purple color rising in his cheeks.

"Whatever, you get my point," he said finally, crossing his arms and averting his eyes to look at the wall.

"There's the Keith we know and love," Allura said with a smile, going back to the console and tapping a few buttons written in Altean. A moment later, a diagram of the Galra mothership flooded the room, bathing the three in blue light. "And just in time too; I have a special proposal for you, Keith." The red paladin looked to Lance, who stared back, equally as lost, and shrugged.

"A proposal? Of what kind?" Allura's smile grew devious, and Keith felt his ears fold back in caution. That smile never meant anything good for the paladins; that was the smile that brought on surprise alarm drills at four in the morning or "team building" exercises that left their limbs feeling like lead. They'd all learned to fear it.

"How do you feel about infiltration?"


	3. The Risk He Took Was Calculated...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> allura's got some 'splainin to do

"No."

"Keith, if you would just _listen–"_

" _No,_  Allura, I don't _need_  to listen, I already know I'm not doing it."

Lance, Keith, and Allura had been joined in the pilot bay by the rest of the paladins and Coran, who stood at Allura's side silently going over the plans she'd put together on the console.

"Keith," came Shiro's firm voice, ever the mediator. "We know you're not exactly proud of where you come from, and none of us are expecting you to be." He ran a hand through the white tufts of his hair and offered him a conciliatory smile, one that Keith met with a hard glare. "In fact, if you were, I think we'd have a bigger problem on our hands than infiltration. But for now, you have to understand that you've given us a huge advantage over Zarkon — one we can only use with your consent. It only makes sense to form a plan in case you give it."

"And what if I don't?"

"Well," Coran cut in, "I'd say we'd just continue as we've been doing, liberating planets one at a time, fending off entire fleets on our own, spending every day barely escaping with our lives with the threat of the Galra mowing us down looming over our heads, not to mention–"

_"Thank you_ , Coran," Allura interjected effectively cutting him off. He grinned and went back to surveying the plans. Keith huffed through his nose, frustration building within him.

"And how are you all so sure that going through with this will make such a big difference?" He turned to Shiro. "Shiro, five minutes ago, you didn't even know that this plan _existed,_ and yet you're ready to throw your support behind it?" The black paladin frowned.

"Keith, you should know well enough by now that I wouldn't just blindly give my okay to any plan that walks through the door."

"Yeah!" Lance added, "Remember when he nixed my plan to dress you in Allura's clothes and have you distract the guards while we snuck into that Galra hangar?"

"There were so many reasons why that wouldn't have ended well for anyone," Shiro deadpanned before turning back to Keith, "But yes, that's essentially my point: if it were a bad idea, I wouldn't be in support of it." Keith stared at the senior officer for another moment before sighing, his shoulders falling as he relaxed. Try as he might, he really couldn't go against his oldest friend for very long.

"Fine. I will _listen._ " The matching relieved smiles of Allura and Shiro left him with a strange feeling of satisfaction despite his resistance. _Is this what having parents feels like?_  "But!" he added quickly "That doesn't mean I've agreed to anything."

"Of course," Allura said, but he could hear the hope light in her voice. Beside her, Coran pulled up the map of the Galra mothership, the image flooding the room just as before. "As I mentioned before, Keith, your mission would be to infiltrate the Galra Empire as the returning prince, offering the Red Lion as tribute."

"And that's where I stopped you, because there's no way in hell I'm going to do that. The Red Lion is one of the most powerful super weapons ever made, I'm not just going to hand it over to the literal worst people in the universe."

"Keith."

"I said I would listen, Shiro, I never said I would be quiet."

_"Keith."_

"...fine." Keith crossed his arms, his indigo eyes fixed in a stubborn glower. "But still, Red is like, my baby. Do you _really_  want me to leave my baby in the hands of a space fascist?"

"Wait, I thought you told me that your hover bike was your 'baby'," Lance interjected, and Keith's gaze fell on him.

"It is. I have two babies." He replied, his voice never wavering in its seriousness. "And neither of them are things that I want in Galra custody."

"Weren't they always in Galra custody?"

"Lance, _shut up._ "

"Make me, mullet!"

"Alright, _enough_ ," Shiro interrupted, stepping between Lance and Keith to block their view of each other.

"Speaking of two babies..." Keith heard Pidge mutter behind him, and he whirled around to shoot her a frown. She met it with a smug smile before directing her attention back to the massive hologram. Allura stood at the console, watching the paladins with a flat expression.

"Anyway..." she continued, reaching up to rotate the ship's image. "You'll present yourself as the ex-prince, providing the explanation for your absence that you've been working as a double-agent for the Galra Empire."

"But," Hunk cut in, "In actuality, he's our double-agent, right?" Allura nodded.

"Precisely. From there, you'll stay on the ship with Zarkon, using your royal influence to lead Galra ships into prime positions for ambush, weakening their power from the inside. As the fleet disintegrates, we'll be free to liberate the planets currently acting as artillery and vessel producers."

"So Zarkon won't be able to rebuild his fleets as quickly," Pidge finished, a contemplative hand on her chin. She'd since revealed to the group that she'd known about Allura's plan all along, having heard it from her during her trip to the pilot bay the night before but saying nothing at the princess's request.

"Or at all, if we're lucky," Coran added.

"And how long, exactly, do you plan on having me stay on the ship?" A sad frown crossed Allura's flawless features, and Keith felt apprehension bubble up within him.

"That's...still waiting to be determined. By my estimates, thinning their main defenses should leave enough of an opening for us to return for you, but as for how long it will take..." Allura trailed off, looking up at the diagram instead of meeting Keith's eyes.

Everyone fell into silence for a moment, and Keith felt the weight of brief glances on him every other moment. He kept his eyes on the hologram, the squared off rooms and sprawling corridors still so familiar to him after all this time.

"I'm the only one who can do this..." he said, his voice soft as a chunk of his jet-black bangs fell over his eyes. His teammates seemed to be holding their breath in anticipation, all wondering what the hot-tempered paladin would do next. He couldn't say he blamed them; this plan was starting to mesh together in the tentatively dangerous way that can only occur when things are a Big Fucking Deal. Any breaks on the parts of any of Team Voltron could lead to the deaths of themselves, their team, and hundreds, likely _thousands_ , of others across the galaxy...but then again, weren't they used to that by now?

Keith's thoughts went to the stars waiting outside the castle windows, and the planets lying between them, barren and full of life alike. He thought back through the wormhole, to Earth, where he had no family of his own, but he knew for sure that Lance and Pidge did, and so did every one of their Garrison classmates and everyone inhabiting the cities where the young cadets liked to sneak off to after curfew. What would happen to them if his grandfather reached them before he could stop him?

"Being a paladin of Voltron has forced me to face a lot of things I would've rather locked up and buried for the rest of my life," he began, and guilt danced briefly across Allura's face. "But it's also taught me a lot too. Like how everything in the universe has value — how everything has its own life." He looked from the diagram to his team, his eyes pausing at each of their faces.  

"Zarkon's not going to stop until every corner of the universe is under his reign. Earth has been a goal of his for a very long time." His eyes lowered. "It was even the reason for my parents meeting. But that won't stop him from turning every planet between here and Earth into another link in his sadistic daisy-chain. So...if it's my job to help prevent that from happening...well, I'll do what I can." Allura beamed, her smile bright and gleaming compared to the composed "proud father" look he got from Shiro.

"So you'll do it?"

"I will," he said with a nod. "But on one condition." Allura raised a single sculpted eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"If things start to go South, don't come after me; I'll have the Red Lion, I'll find a way out, but I won't let you guys risk letting the rest of Voltron fall into Galra hands because of me." Keith had expected the princess to look skeptical, to protest, even, but to his surprise, she smiled. Only something was wrong; this wasn't an Allura Smile™, the kind that either lets the paladins know that all is well or tells them that they're in for nothing less than hell the moment they hit the training room. Oh no, this was a different smile, smug and scheming, the smile of a mind that spent far more time plotting acts of evil than the graceful princess; it was a Pidge Smile™.

"What did you do to her?" Keith asked flatly, turning to face the green paladin, whose smile matched Allura's perfectly.

"Why do you assume it was me?" She didn't even bother to put on a look of fake shock; it was clear to anyone with eyes that the two were in cahoots.

"Oh, come on, Pidge, you're the only one here who smiles like they're about to commit a crime." Shiro looked from the princess to the paladin, his eyes alight with both amusement and fear for whatever they were about to subject the poor, clueless red paladin to.

"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with what you two were talking about in the pilot bay last night, would it?" Allura and Pidge both shot him a look that let him know immediately that thinking otherwise would be a bigger mistake than letting Keith cook breakfast. (To this day, they all still wondered how he'd managed to live to eighteen without knowing that in order to cook, you have to turn the stove _on_.)

"Of course it does," the black paladin continued, running his metal hand over his face in resignation.

_Just fuck me up,_  Keith thought, reluctantly accepting the damning detail that was sure to come next.

"Alright, let's hear it, what are you smiling for?"

"Nothing, Keith, really!" Keith could never say that he'd been given reason to think Allura a dirty liar before, but at that moment, his views were starting to change. "We were just thinking about your condition, and how it might be a little harder to keep from approaching the Galra mothership ourselves..."

"When we have  _two_  paladins aboard," Pidge finished, having somehow scooted her way to where Allura stood, ducking out from behind her as if she could use the taller woman as a shield.

Everyone seemed to wake up a little more at this revelation, even the cool-headed Shiro, who blinked owlishly at the princess.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Well, last night, Pidge was kind enough to point out that Keith's passing as a double-agent would be much more convincing with someone else going with him to pose as his prisoner." Her eyes darted to Shiro, gauging his reaction before speaking again: his face was calm, but in a strained sort of way, and the rest of his body had visibly tensed. "We were able to rule out some options right away, but we still had enough candidates to deliberate on who would give the most convincing performance."

_Oh no, here it comes_ , Keith thought, and as he grew more and more apprehensive, he could feel the telltale pricks of his Galra ears as they grew from his head, immediately flattening against his hair and giving his stance about all of the fearlessness of a terrified puppy. _Shiro's out of the running, obviously, and so are Coran and Allura..._

"Pidge will be busy helping myself and Coran up the castle defenses for our attacks on the fleet," Allura continued, knocking another contender out of Keith's thinning mental list. "And we'll need the armor power of the Yellow Lion to help us during battle..."

"Oh, goddamn it."

_"Hijo de puta,"_  Lance slapped his hands against his face as he sat up, and only then did Keith realize that the blue paladin had been lying on the ground; Shiro really did make for an excellent wall.  _"Mátame. ¡Mátame! ¡Quiero morir!"_

"Allura, _please_  don't do this to me."

"I'm sorry, Keith," she said without a hint of sympathy as Pidge grinned up at her. "But we've been left no other choice."

"Allura," Lance begged, "I will _pay you_  not to say it out loud."

"Keith," she continued, ignoring him completely. She seemed to be enjoying this much more than Keith felt it was morally right to. "For your mission to infiltrate the Galra empire, you will be joined by none other than the pilot of the Blue Lion and your fellow paladin of Voltron, Lance McClain."

And suddenly, Keith couldn't say that he cared anymore if Zarkon murdered him where he stood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> she probably hasn't had this much fun in 10,000 years, keith, let her have this
> 
> okay, so, short update full of more plot shenanigans, those are always fun, right???? ahahaha please say yes
> 
> so i wrote out my general plan for this story, and it looks like things are going to really pick up from here! i haven't tried my hand at writing a genuinely serious story in a long time, though, so bear with me if you will while this fic toes the line between adventure and straight crack. i hope you guys see it through with me to the end! (and thank you all for all the lovely comments!!!)


	4. ...And They're Lucky Pilots Are Good At Math

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've got a joke for you: A missing prince, a dramatic false captive, and a giant mechanical cat walk into a spaceship...

If Lance had known that that day on top of the Garrison roof would be his last day on Earth, he would've done something better than fail the flight simulator for the nth time. He might've scraped together the crumpled wad of bills leftover from his mother's last care package to him and pooled it with Hunk and Pidge's own meager funds (that he's pretty sure Pidge stole, come to think of it) to cover shuttle fare into the nearest city they could find. He'd try to make it to the beach if he could — he wanted to take deep gulps of the ocean air and hold it for as long as he could, to ensure that he wouldn't forget it among the bleak emptiness of space.

But he didn't.

So here he was, laying on the floor and hurtling through space in a giant red cat at however many miles per hour Keith was flying towards the Galra mothership. It seemed like a shit-ton. Lance decided that a shit-ton was a reasonable estimate as he took a deep breath through his nose and stared up at the crimson-lit ceiling. _The Red Lion doesn't smell like the ocean. The Red Lion smells like metal and burning fuel and...a fireplace? Maybe that's just Keith; does Keith always smell singed like that?_

"Hey, Keith!" He cried out before he could stop himself. _Shit. Great plan, Lance, now here's the part where you ask him what he smells like!_ He heard the sound of Keith shifting at the sound of his voice, and he peeked up through his bangs to look at the red paladin as he glanced at him over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"Can't you stand like a normal person?" Lance grimaced.

"Not all of us have fancy pilot chairs, asshole."

"I'd be happy to eject you into space so you can go get your own Lion."

"Shove it, mullet, I'm trying to ask you something." Keith rolled his eyes, turning his head back to watch where he was going.

"Sure, whatever, fire away."

"Have you ever been to the beach?" There was a pause on Keith's end as he thought.

"Does that marine planet we visited for that trade ship distress beacon count?" Lance shook his head, arcing his head back against the floor until Keith became fully upside-down. 

"Nope — the water was bright purple and tasted like cotton candy. I'm talking Earth beaches, with the wind and the waves and the seagulls that'll bully you for your extra French fries." 

"Oh." Keith's voice became small, like a child's. "Then, no." He paused again. "Do they really do that?" Lance rolled onto his stomach, stretching his long arms out in front of him.

"Oh yeah, totally. Seagulls are godless creatures. I'm pretty sure they don't have souls." He looked up at the glass of the Red Lion's viewport and couldn't help grinning at the genuine concern in Keith's expression. It reminded him of his younger brother's face after he told him that Santa didn't come to kids who didn't share their Halloween candy with their older brothers: serious and pondering, as if he were weighing his options. If it had come from anyone other than Keith, it would've been cute. 

_It's still kind of cute,_ a nagging voice in his head insisted. He shook his head to chase the thought away. _No, no it's not, because Keith is a pompous princely fucker, and there's nothing cute about fuckers._ He thought back to Keith's sleeping form curled in the pillow nest and of the picture stored in the long-since-rendered-useless smartphone attached to his hip. _...nothing cute about fuckers._

"So, then, why _do_ people go to the beach?" 

"Why?" Keith nodded.

"I mean, there's got to be something worth going for if people like you are willing to risk hanging around something like that." Lance grinned broadly and sat up on his knees.

"Man, where do I _start?!_ Every beach has something a little different that makes it awesome; there's one three hours outside of the Garrison base that's got the most insane waves for surfing I've ever seen."

"You surf?" Keith was looking at him now, the Red Lion finally slowed down from Mach 15 to a leisurely speed of Bat Out of Hell. His eyes were bright and intrigued, and in the glow of the red neon Lance forced himself to admit he was pretty damn cute. Y'know, for a fucker.

"Y-yeah," he started, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. "My uncle taught me when I was a kid. My family and I go to the beach for two weeks every summer and stay in a cabin." His bright smile dimmed into one of wistful nostalgia. "It's a little cramped and there are spiders and the AC stopped working like, a bajillion years ago, but my grandfather bought it back when my dad was a baby, and it's just been another part of the family traditions ever since." 

Silence passed between the two boys as Lance slumped back onto his back, trying to picture the family scene they both worried they would never see. Stars streaked past the Red Lion's windows as they careened through space, the little purple Galra symbol on Keith's navigator growing closer and closer by the second. 

"Sorry," Lance finally said, the first to shatter the calm as usual; this time, though, Keith was inexplicably grateful that he did. "I didn't mean to get all sentimental or whatever." 

"It's cool, don't worry about it," came Keith's almost immediate reply. His voice was level and low. Had Keith's voice always been that soft? It was almost soothing.

_No, no, bad gay thoughts, go back to fawning over people that aren't Keith. Like Shiro. Or that kid in your flight training class with the tight shirts and the nice ass. Damn, he was fine...oh, wait. That was Keith..._

"Hey, Lance?" The owner of the ass in question's voice suddenly broke through Lance's thoughts, pulling him back to the reality of their mission. "What's it like to have a family? Like, a real, human, not-evil one?" Lance blinked.

"First of all, I think that's the saddest question I've ever heard, and second, one of these days, Keith Kogane, I'm going to show you what a family looks like. I promise." He punctuated his statement with an outstretched pinky finger, scooting across the floor with the utmost grace of a waddling toddler. Keith looked at his hand in confusion, his eyes wide and owlish.

"...what are you doing?" 

"Making you a pinky promise; it's the highest gesture of commitment within a family."

"Pinky promise?" He parroted, and Lance felt one of his eyes involuntarily twitch.

"You really are an alien, aren't you?" Keith frowned.

"Not by choice!" He defended, though his anger deflated when Lance broke into giggles. 

"Relax, relax," he reassured. He reached out with his free hand and took Keith's armored hand in his own, causing the dark-haired teen to instinctively curl it into a fist. Lance gently worked at his closed fingers, his lower lip falling into a pout at Keith dug his nails further into his palm. After another second of trying to pry open his fingers, Lance finally gave out a sigh of resignation. 

"We'll work on it," he muttered to the floor as Keith yanked back his hand. If he'd looked up a second earlier, the blue paladin would've caught the bright flush of pink dusting Keith's cheeks, the color growing more and more lavender by the second as his blush deepened. Instead, he turned away, pushing himself to focus on steering his semi-auto piloting Lion. 

"That's what you said about that cheer..." Lance perked up instantly, getting to his feet and leaning excitedly against Keith's chair. 

"And have you been working on it? C'mon, lemme hear you! I say Vol, you say...!" 

"Get off my chair." Keith winced as the taller boy loudly made a buzzer-like noise right in his ear.

"Wrong answer, try again. I say Vol, you say...!" 

"...Voltron?" Lance gave him a flat look. 

"If all Galra are as dense as you, this mission will be over in a day." Keith bristled, jerking his head around to glare at Lance. His face was still lilac, though this time his eyes were sharp with irritation. 

"Do you have to be an ass about _everything?_ "

_"Me?!"_ Lance nearly screeched, "You are _so_ not one to talk, Mr. 'I'm too good for everyone' Broody McEdgelord!" 

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"Your face doesn't make sense!" 

Before their shouting could dissolve into an insult war (that Lance would inevitably lose when he ran out of clever comebacks), Allura's face appeared above the pilot console, alerting the two to an incoming call from the castle. 

"Answer," Lance said automatically, and Keith raised an eyebrow as nothing happened.

"Um, hello? _My_ Lion? She's not going to respond to your voice." Lance narrowed his eyes.

"I wonder how she'd respond to my foot up your ass," he shot back as Keith answered the call and the image of their friends projected into the Red Lion's viewport. Though the video connection sputtered in and out of clarity, Pidge's impish grin and Shiro's flat look of disapproval were as clear as if they were standing in the room with them; clearly they'd all heard Lance's last rebuttal. 

Pidge whistled, the high sound disconnecting suddenly mid-stream before going back to normal. _"Two hours in and you're already shoving things up asses? You guys are moving fast."_

_"Pidge."_ Through the Lion's speakers, Shiro's warning came out chopped and cut off, and the boys looked at each other in confusion. 

"Mind telling us why the video feed is all..." Keith cut himself off, instead waving his hand in tiny circular motions in place of words. Lance took it upon himself to finish for him, leaning further over Keith's chair to move closer to the screen until his chest nearly touched Keith's head.

"You all sound like you ate a computer virus for breakfast." Keith frowned as he reached up and shoved Lance back.

"The castle hasn't been corrupted again, has it?" Allura shook her head, and Coran stepped out of the frame.

_"Nope!"_ he called back as he returned. _"Everything's ship-shape."_

_"You're moving out of our communications range,"_ Allura explained. Her graceful features flickered on the screen as she talked. _"Soon we'll lose contact altogether."_

_"Don't worry,"_ Shiro reassured them, noting their twin wide-eyed looks of panic, _"We're working on temporarily expanding the call range so we can still reach you if there's trouble."_

_"But you must understand that it will be dangerous,"_ the princess continued. _"Expanding the range to reach the mothership already puts the castle in a position to be tracked by the Galra Empire. It is imperative that you only contact us first if you're in dire need of assistance."_  

"Oh great, so, what you're saying is, our backup is basically out of commission unless things go horribly south," Lance quipped irritably. He held up a sarcastic thumbs-up. "Got it." Shiro's fatherly smile was slightly marred by the crackling connection, but it was no less comforting. 

" _We'll be there if you guys need us, Lance. We promise."_

_"With the Galra fleet's current pathway,"_ Coran added, _"We should be able to pull of at least one trip within range a week and still remain undetected. We'll check in then to make sure everything's going according to plan."_ As Lance and Keith's concern melted away, Allura's hard look of command softened into a smile. 

_"The two of you will execute this flawlessly, I know you will."_ Keith gave the princess a grateful smile.

"Princess, when have I ever been known to do anything less than flawless?" Lance said, flipping his hair and leaning back over Keith's chair, to which the latter replied with a hard punch to the former's chest plate. Through the comm, Allura shot him a challenging smile.

_"Don't get me started, Lance; there've been so many failed training exercises since you've all become paladins that I've started keeping a tally."_ Coran nodded from behind her.

_"You should see it actually, it's rather impressive; she's color-coded the tally marks based on who made what mistakes."_ The paladins blanched. 

"I think I'll pass on checking it out..." Lance muttered, visibly deflating, and around him everyone mumbled their agreement. 

_"Anyway,"_ Shiro cut in, _"You should be getting close now. Remember the plan, you two."_ Keith and Lance shared a nod.

"Infiltrate," Keith began, his voice a steady rhythm as he ticked off steps on his fingers. "Assimilate–"

"Detonate!" Lance cheered, finishing the last step and ignoring Keith's hiss of "If you lean on my chair _one more time–"_

_"More or less,"_ Shiro relented with a soft sigh. _"Just promise me you'll keep each other from getting hurt, alright?"_

"Does that include hurting each other, or..."

" _Keith._ "

"Fine, whatever, you don't have to give me the dad voice, I was just asking..." The transmission fell into a chorus of goodbyes and well wishes, and when Hunk and Coran promised together to cook the two of them a lavish welcome feast upon returning, Keith couldn't help but smile. However, apprehension shot through his mind as he looked from the flickering screen to Lance, whose eyes were wide and shining with unshed tears as he reached out to line up his open palm with Hunk's in a long-distance high five. 

"Shiro, wait!" Keith called out suddenly, the distress in his voice surprising everyone.

_"Yes?"_

"Do seagulls really not have souls?" Shiro blinked owlishly at the question before looking at Lance, who had clapped a hand to his mouth to muffle the snickers bubbling up from his core. From behind him, he could hear Pidge's flat "what"; Hunk nodded beside him, looking for all the world like a jaded veteran of war.

_"Yes,"_ he answered finally, steeling his face back into an expression of stern command. _"They're not to be trusted."_ Shiro grinned, breaking his intense stare as Lance burst into loud cackles, the sudden noise making Keith jump. His Galra ears shot from his head in surprise, making Lance laugh even harder as dug his fingers into Keith's pilot chair. 

His screech of _"LANCE!"_ echoed through the castle's pilot bay as the weak connection finally fizzled out, severing the conversation. Allura let out a deep sigh, and Shiro put a hand on her shoulder. 

"They'll be fine."

"If they haven't killed each other by now, they should at least make it to the end of the week," Coran hypothesized, and beside him Pidge looked pensive.

"Or at least to the end of the day," she added. Coran considered this, and nodded. 

"End of the day," he concurred. "Tops. Wait, no, tops is maximum, isn't it..."

Shiro lifted his head to the monitor, where the glowing hologram of the Red Lion drew closer and closer to the blinking icon of the Galra Empire, nearly on top of it as the seconds passed. Allura followed his gaze, brushing a loose strand of pearly hair behind her ear. 

"End of the day," she repeated softly, the hardened edge of focus returning to her eyes. "If they can make it to the end of the day...Pidge!" The green paladin turned her gaze to the princess, cutting off her conversation with Coran over Earth and Altean phrases. 

"How soon can we have that enhanced transmitter up?"

\---

Okay, so maybe Keith hadn't been home in a while. Maybe as a kid, everything seemed a little smaller because he'd always known where everything was, and if he hadn't, he was being led by someone who did. Maybe, the last time he was there, he'd been a little too preoccupied with the fleets eager to blow his friends into lion-shaped smithereens to notice anything new, or really anything at all. Maybe he really did have spells of obliviousness when his guard was let down, like his Garrison instructors always marked out in red pen on report cards and shoved at him to give to the parents he didn't have. 

But there was no denying that the mothership was fucking huge. 

Lance let out a low whistle as it came into view.

"Damn," he said, the Red Lion slowing as it approached the glowing shield surrounding the ringed ship. "It's actually kind of impressive when you're not being shot at." Keith scoffed. 

"Sure, if you're into the whole 'Space Communism' aesthetic." He looked up as a group of fighter ships suddenly shot out from seemingly nowhere, each one hurtling towards the Red Lion with a terrifying quickness. "Look alive, we've got company." Lance stiffened, lifting himself from his relaxed lean on Keith's chair to a Garrison-like straight-backed attention. 

"Got the prop?" Keith nodded and reached down, grabbing a pair of sleek electronic handcuffs and tossing them back to Lance. He fixed them around his wrists, a binding wire of electricity forming between them as he closed the second one. 

"Reminds me of the last time a Lion was taken," he mused as he tugged at them. Keith let out a short laugh as he thought of the bounty hunters, and how he'd chased their ship through an asteroid belt to retrieve the Blue Lion while Lance was strapped to a tree. 

"Yeah..." he agreed, clenching his fingers around the controls as the ships drew closer; the Red Lion remained still, and Keith felt the dashboard hum with its apprehension. "We're going to be okay," he continued, his voice soft as he ran a hand along the arm of his chair. "Nothing's going to happen to you as long as I'm here." 

"Thanks, buddy, I appreciate it." Keith frowned. 

"Not _you_. The Lion." Lance pouted. 

"Well, _excuse me_ for thinking that you cared." Keith didn't reply, instead pulling his helmet over his head and putting out a broadcast signal to the ships now surrounding them. His Galra ears had smoothed back against his head since being startled free, but the weight of their presence felt even heavier as the broadcast was picked up, and he was suddenly face-to-face with the feral grin of someone he had been hoping never to see again. 

"Well, shit," Lance whispered, "Looks like Sendak found his way home." Keith cleared his throat. 

"Paladins of Voltron," the Galra commander began, his fangs pushed into a victorious smirk. "To what do we owe the pleasure of such a visit?" The way Sendak said "visit" unsettled Keith, as if one could simply visit the executioner's block. Still, he willed his face calm under the dark of the helmet's visor.

"I've come to offer my loyalty to Emperor Zarkon." One of Sendak's large ears twitched in surprise at his claim. "I've commandeered the Red Lion, and pilot it in the name of the Galra Empire." The commanding officer scoffed. 

"An impossible claim. Voltron has been actively fighting against the Galra as a unit since its recent rebirth; you cannot possibly expect me to believe the Red Lion would willfully accept a paladin with the intentions of a traitor." Keith blanched slightly under his helmet as the electric hum of charging plasma guns echoed through the open space. Any second now, their entire plan could take a nosedive into deep shit territory, and then where would they be? Well, other than in deep shit. 

Picking up on Keith's silence, Lance stepped in. "Don't you think that if the Red Lion had a problem with him, we'd be ejected into space by now?" Every few seconds, Lance strained against his handcuffs as he spoke, his normal wild gesticulations restricted by their pull. "Face it, Fluffy, where he goes, this cat's gonna follow, and I don't think Zarkon would be too happy with you for letting a fully-functional Lion and its willing paladin just walk away thanks to  _your_ judgement." Sendak raised a purple eyebrow.

"Am I now to trust that not only one but two paladins of Voltron are suddenly aligning themselves with the Galra? I know you, Blue One, may have been indisposed during our last meeting, but believe me when I say that I won't be thought of as a fool."

"Could've fooled me," Lance muttered to Keith, who tried to cover his laugh with another clear of his throat. 

"But regardless of whether you believe us or not, you'll attempt to take the Lion, won't you?" Yellow eyes narrowed at the two teenagers.

"Of course; I wouldn't be fit to call a commander if I missed such a prime opportunity to watch Voltron fall." As the already-surrounding fighter ships draw closer, their lasers glowing magenta with lightning-like plasma, Keith's pulse quickened; they had to act, and fast.

"Then take him prisoner," he said suddenly, jutting out his chin towards Lance. The latter's eyes widened instinctively, but he soon found his cool and held up his handcuffed wrists. "You can't tell me that there's absolutely no benefit in having both the Red Lion  _and_ the Blue Lion's paladin in Galra custody." Sendak chuckled, and Keith felt his face flare at not being taken seriously.

"And what of you, Red Paladin? Are you expecting special treatment while your friend rots away in the cells?" Keith gave Lance a look, one that he hoped told him properly,  _"Don't worry, you won't be going to any cells."_ Thoughts of Shiro flashed through his mind, and he clenched his teeth as he reached up and pulled off his helmet. 

"Well, I would hope so," he answered, shaking his hair out and pulling his bangs back into his eyes. If Lance weren't so tense, he'd probably blush. Only if he was looking at him, that is, which he —  _pssh —_ totally wasn't. 

"Don't think your weak attempt at joining our ranks will get you so far, boy; you'll go to the cells with your friend, where your only service will be to die for entertainment with the other slugs in the arena." Sendak's confidence seemed to falter as a smile spread across the red paladin's face, slow and sure and so much like the rare grin of Zarkon himself that the commander was taken aback. It was a smile of power, and it only grew as a familiar pair of flopped-over lavender ears began to protrude from among Keith's choppy blanket of hair. His teeth sharpened quicker into fangs than they had a few days before, slightly surprising Keith as the sharp points dug into his lip. 

He shot a quick glance at Lance, who looked back at him and gave him a slight nod, his message clear:  _Do whatever you have to._ Thankful for the reassurance, Keith let himself go fully Galra for the first time in years. It was admittedly strange; the dreams typically put him in a partial state, where only his ears or eyes transformed but the rest of him was left human.  But now, he could feel the ripple of goosebumps rush over his skin as it was tainted violet, and the gloves of his suit grew tighter as his nails sharpened into dull claws.

Golden eyes glared back at Sendak, swimming with determination and a cocky sort of pride that left Lance staring again; bravado looked _good_  on Keith. 

"Now, uncle, really," he said, tucking his helmet under his arm. Sendak looked like Keith might as well have wrapped a hand around his throat, and Lance nearly cheered. "Is that any way to greet your nephew?" 

\---

"Quiet, fives, a ten is speaking!" 

Despite Keith's earlier incredulousness about bringing Lance along for the Galra mission, he found himself quickly admitting a very real advantage of the blue paladin's presence: he was a damn good hype man. It would've been one thing to just yell to the crowd of assembled Galra soldiers; Sendak's looming figure behind them would've commanded any attention that Lance's screaming hadn't already drawn, and it would've made for a pretty satisfying entrance by Keith's typical standards. But to broadcast Lance's voice at full volume through the open mouth of a roaring Lion of Voltron? _Fucking incredible_.

After a moment of sputtered babbling (which the boys enjoyed _immensely_ ) on Sendak's part, the commander had agreed to bring them and the Lion to Zarkon. Lance's handcuffs were still fixed around his wrists in accordance with his role, but he was allowed to stay with Keith in the cockpit as he walked the Lion into the throne room of the colossal mothership, Sendak leading a few steps ahead of the massive robot as the crowd parted around them. 

"That's right! Y'all better make some room! The prince has returned, and he's got the sickest ride this side of Kerberos!" Lance crooned through the speakers, and Keith laughed as he worked the Red Lion, pulling her head up high until she walked with the perfect arrogant air to match Lance's bragging. The crowd around them watched in awe, and that only seemed to stoke his fires even further. 

He leaned over Keith to punch at a button with his tied hands, his grin widening at the red paladin's attempt to shove him away by his face. The Lion let out another echoing roar, and this time the crowd exploded into resounding cheers. 

"Aw, come _on_ , Galra," Lance teased, and Keith was impressed at how he worked the crowd like an expert. "I know you can do better than that! Let's hear it for the boy, one more time!" The room nearly shook with noise as the crowd started again, and this time Keith added the roar on his own, laughing under the deafening din of noise as Lance howled into the mic. 

"You're surprisingly good at this," he told him as he deactivated the Lion's microphone. The energy thrumming from her was thankfully much more relaxed than before, and Keith felt himself sink comfortably into his chair for what felt like the first time that day. _Good kitty._

Lance gave him an unbothered shrug, riding the highs of his ego as always, but his mouth gave him away as it creeped into a genuine smile. "What can I say? The people love me. I wouldn't be surprised if they gave me a crown of my own; bigger than yours, of course, all gold and with sapphires and stuff." Keith rolled his eyes.

"Trust me, you won't want it. Not from these guys." Lance's smile faltered.

"Yeah...right." His face hardened as Sendak stopped before an elevated stage, illuminated by a series of towering windows glittering with stars. Keith pulled the Red Lion into a seated position, and she dropped her head to let them out. They took twin deep breaths, Lance's broad shoulders circling back in careful motions like a physical mantra. 

"Alright," he said, his voice hushed so only Keith could hear. "It's showtime." This would be the moment where he'd grin if things were normal. But they weren't; they were terrifying, with way too much on the line to have any cracks in their foundation. So Lance didn't smile, and neither did Keith. 

When Keith stepped into the violet glow of the throne room, all was quiet. The atmosphere was so dizzyingly different from the raucous cheers that filled the room before that dread settled deep in his stomach like a weight, the feeling amplified tenfold by the figure being ushered onto the stage. 

There was nothing different about the way Emperor Zarkon looked appearance-wise —he stalked onto the stage rocking the same Iron-Man-meets-Voldemort look as always — but the air around him seemed different, somehow softer while still demanding the obedience of everyone in the vicinity. At his side stood Haggar, looking just as dreadful as ever. For a moment, her scowling face was replaced by the same teasing grin from Keith's dream, and her laugh mixed with his infant one echoed in his ears loudly enough to make him stop in his tracks; Lance had to reach awkwardly at him and nudge him forward by his elbow to get him to keep moving as they marched towards the stage. 

He threw an anxious glance over his shoulder and breathed out a short sigh of relief as he saw the protective red-lined shield surrounding the Red Lion, keeping her safe from any intruding Galra. Willing his face calm, he turned back around and stared up into the unforgiving face of the man he'd been running from for the past eight years.

In front of Keith and Lance, Sendak saluted, and Keith copied him. " _Vrepit sa,_  Your Majesty."

" _Repit_ , wait, shit,  _vrepit sa_ _,"_ Keith repeated, stammering over the alien word. He bent over into an awkward bow, craning his neck to look over at Lance, who met his eyes nervously. 

"I- uh, sorry - I would salute too, but uh..." He held up his cuffed hands so that the emperor could see them. "So, I guess I'll just, yeah, um... _vrepit sa_ , my dude." He folded into a stiff bow, and Zarkon nodded, surprisingly unconcerned with Lance's informality. Instead, his eyes fell upon Keith, who rose and blinked owlishly. 

"My grandson never could say the traditional Galra salute correctly," he began, his voice a deep rumble throughout the silent room. "He would always stutter, or mix up the syllables around his baby fangs." Zarkon's stony face curled into a slight smile, and Keith ran his tongue along his fangs, the vague memory of his speech impediment surging back to him. "Do you remember that, Sendak?"

The commander nodded. "His front fangs were too big for his mouth, like his father's used to be. He couldn't make the 'vr' sound correctly, so whenever he tried to say it, it always came out like-"

" _Epit_ ," Keith finished for him, the words leaving his mouth before he even knew he'd opened it. "I developed a lisp too, when I was around seven or eight, so my 's's weren't clear either." He found his gaze drifting to Haggar, who was studying him carefully, a hint of surprise glinting in her sharp eyes. "You tried to fix it once or twice, I think, but you-" He jutted his chin out towards Zarkon. "-decided that it was cute, and so it stayed.  _Epit tha."_

Keith's blood was pounding in his ears as Zarkon stared him down, and he was struck by the sudden fear that he'd gotten something wrong. It had admittedly been some time since he'd allowed himself to dig back up those repressed memories; what if he'd missed something important and their entire plan was compromised because of him? He could picture it now:  _"The real Keith never had a lisp when he was eight! It was when he was **six!** To the arena with you!"  _

Lance's nearby snicker yanked Keith out of his panicked thoughts. "Pfft, dude,  _seriously?_ That's adorable, you sound just like my baby cousin Angelo. He can't say his 'r's yet, he sounds like Elmer Fudd." Keith frowned.

"Who the hell is Elmer Fudd?" Lance gasped and looked scandalized.

"You don't know who Elmer Fudd is?" Keith shook his head. "Bugs Bunny? Daffy? Duck season, rabbit season?" He clucked his tongue in disapproval. "We really have to get you a proper cultural education, Keith." The assembled crowd drew in a sharp breath as Lance finished, and the two boys looked around frantically before looking back to Zarkon and his court, the emperor's face betraying nothing. 

"Boy," he commanded, addressing Lance for the first time. "What did you just call him?" The brunette teen raised an eyebrow carefully. 

"Keith? As in, Keith Kogane?" He couldn't really tell if he was helping their case or not, but he straightened where he stood, ready to launch himself in front of Keith at the first sign of attack. After all, he  _was_ the only one who could get the Lion out of there if things went bad. "Your grandson with the floppy ears? Didn't he already brief you on this?" He pointed a finger at Sendak. Zarkon looked contemplative.

"While it's true that you share the same features as my lost grandson, and bear the name of his human mother, I cannot yet say I am convinced by your claims."

"Your mom's name was Keith?" Lance whispered, and Keith punched him in the arm.

"Her last name was Kogane, you idiot. Galra don't  _have_ last names." 

"Oh. Well, then, what other evidence do you need?" Zarkon now looked a little annoyed.

"What exactly is he doing here?" Keith sighed.

"He's my prisoner. He's the Blue Paladin of Voltron, and the biggest pain in the ass this side of the star system." Haggar's brow raised in interest.  


"Two paladins of Voltron cannot simply be released, Your Highness," she hissed, speaking up for the first time since their arrival. "Whether you believe this boy to be Keith or not, the Red-"

"I am aware of the advantage, Haggar," Zarkon said, harshly cutting the witch off before moving his stony glare back to Keith. "If you are truly my grandson, answer me this: where have you been these past eight years? Entire fleets have been sent out for your retrieval and returned with nothing to the point where the search had to be abandoned for fear you were dead." Keith's shoulders sagged; there had been times within the first few months of being on his own where he'd wished he  _were_ dead.  _Would've hurt less people than staying alive._ He shook his head to clear his mind; he had no time to think like that now. He had a role to play in the safety of the universe, and if that included offering himself to the most dangerous people in the stars, well...that's the bitch of life. 

"I went to Earth," he said honestly. "Well, not immediately. I taught myself to fly a pod and ended up planet-hopping for a few months before losing fuel on Halis." Zarkon glared at Sendak.

"You said you'd checked every corner of Halis." His voice remained calm, but the hidden meaning of his words wasn't lost on the young paladins as the commander blanched beside them. 

"I-I made myself really hard to find!" Keith exclaimed, rushing to his defense. "I've always been good at hiding, grandfather. Remember when I crawled into the vents to avoid getting my hair cut and stayed there for three days?" He was only just remembering this event himself; he'd gotten his father to slide him his dinner plates through a shaft in his bedroom, his own long hair making him sympathize with the plight of his young son until his mother finally relented. 

To the relief of both Keith and Sendak, Zarkon let out a low chuckle. "I had almost forgotten about that."

"I hadn't," Haggar added with a cackle. "I can still remember your mother's yelling after Lotor finally got you out of that vent." She pointed a bony finger towards Keith, and a lock of his hair lifted off of his shoulder and twirled in the air around him. "Seems like you've remained averse to haircuts after all these years." Keith laughed nervously and shrugged.

"What can I say, Auntie? Some things never change." As he looked into the smiling face of his family, he breathed a sigh of relief; things finally seemed to be going according to plan.

"But why?" came Zarkon's voice again. "Why would you leave? Did I not provide enough for you here? I did the best I could to measure up to your parents..." Keith's ears drooped somewhat guiltily. 

"I know, grandfather, I know. It's just..." He looked at Lance, who met his eyes with silent support. "I didn't understand what you were doing here, with the Empire, I mean. I was confused, and scared, and Mom and Dad had just...look, it was a lot, okay? I just kept seeing people getting hurt and there was nothing I could do, and it all seemed so... _evil._ So I ran." He shook his head, and his choppy bangs slowly turned from deep purple to black and back again. "But I understand now. I want to be a part of this...erm, vision that you're creating here. And I knew that I needed a way back into space in order to pull that off."  He gestured to the sitting Red Lion behind him, and even from their distance he could feel her sleeping hum. 

"So...this just, uh, kinda happened." Zarkon nodded.

"And so I suppose that our little altercation outside of the ship was just a result of some pent-up teenaged angst?" There was amusement in his voice, and Keith let out a nervous laugh. 

"Heh, yeah...something like that." The emperor turned to face the windows, the expanse of space spanned out in front of him. 

"I must say, I'm impressed by your abilities. It seems you've gotten the Red Lion to trust you without any qualms." He turned again, his cape billowing out behind him in a way that reminded Keith of a 30s-era Dracula. "Having the both of you aligned with our Empire will do great things for our agenda." From the corner of his eye, Keith could see Lance rolling his shoulders again, his mouth drawn into a flat line of restrained panic.

"And what of my prisoner?" Lance scowled.

"I have a name, Keith." 

"Do you wanna avoid going to the arena or not?" 

"Can't you negotiate and still use my name? Like, oh, I don't know, a  _person?"_

"Can't you go one moment without whining?"

"Oh, I'm  _so sorry,_ Your Mullet-ness, am I inconveniencing you?"

"That doesn't even make any sense!" 

"Silence!" By the time Zarkon quieted them both, the two boys had inched closer to each other to the point where they were quite literally butting heads, Keith's long bangs draping into Lance's eyes as they pressed their foreheads together. Zarkon gave a very parental sigh, the move familiar and foreign to see for Lance; it almost reminded him of Allura.  _Lance McClain_ , he thought.  _Irritating the shit out of intergalactic leaders since 2016._ "I think I know what's going on here."

The two blinked up at the dictator.

"Y-you do?" they stammered in unison. Zarkon gave them a solemn nod.

"Clearly, your connection is more than just that of a prisoner and his captor." Keith gulped. 

"I-it's not what you think!" he said hurriedly. "He's just another Voltron maggot who means nothing to me! I-I only brought him here to keep him quiet to the others about coming back here!" Zarkon held up a hand, stopping Keith's rambling in its tracks. He was almost grateful for the intervention; a few seconds more and he would've channeled his inner Pidge and ended up rambling for hours on end. 

"You don't need to make up excuses; the truth is apparent from the way you two interact with each other." His grandfather looked from one paladin to the other slowly, and Keith swore that if his heart beat any louder, the entire room would be able to hear it. 

Astonishingly, the next moment, Zarkon's face broke into a pleased grin. 

"You could have simply told me you were in a relationship." 

"A whaaa..." Lance trailed off, his mouth hanging open as Keith's cheeks turned a dangerously dark shade of purple. 

"G-grandfather, I-" 

"No excuses! It's offending enough that you felt compelled to try and hide it from me. But worry not, my dear heir, I pass no judgement on the nature of your relationship with this paladin. As long as your relationship stands, he will be safe from admittance into the arena." Keith's weak will to protest suddenly shattered as he processed this information. He looked at Lance, who seemed just as shell-shocked as he was, with his mouth still hanging open dumbly.  _Well, you know what they say about a gift horse..._

Moving faster than Lance could comprehend, Keith slung an arm around his broad shoulders. "Heh, well, it's a good thing we're so happy together, right Lance?" The blue paladin blinked, first at Keith, whose forced grin looked tight enough to crack hazelnuts, and then to Zarkon, who looked expectant in the way of a protective father...or in this case, grandfather. 

But Keith was his rival! He could never fake-date his rival! That'd be like one of the Hatfields sucking face with a McCoy, or mixing Coke and Pepsi, or Harry Potter making out with Malfoy — actually, wait, he thought he saw that one once and it wasn't that bad. But still! These things aren't  _supposed_ to happen, they mess with the natural order of things! 

_ Then again, _  he thought, a light blush rising to his cheeks as he thought back to Keith peacefully sleeping on the floor, and the bright, wide-eyed look he got whenever he was curious.  _Does "natural order"_ _really apply in a place like this?_ _I mean, we're dealing with space communism here. There's nothing natural about that._

He took a moment to examine Keith again, his Galra features slowly fading in and out of manifestation as his hold on his Galra form slipped away. Right now, he stared at Lance with rich indigo eyes that suddenly seemed so much purpler than they ever had before, a light ring of gold framing them just so in a way that made them shine. 

"Lance?" he asked softly, and the combination of his enchanting eyes and gentle concern made something deep inside Lance  _melt._ _Fuck it. How bad can it be?_

The blue paladin shook his head to clear his mind, grinning as he painted on his normal egotistical image. "Sorry, babe, just got a little lost in your eyes." His smile grew as he heard a few "aww"s ripple through the crowd of onlookers, and from up on the stage, Zarkon smiled down at them approvingly. Keith, on the other hand, rolled his eyes.

"You're so cheesy," he mumbled, pushing Lance away with one arm and bringing up a gloved hand to cover his rising flush. 

"Aw, come on, you know you love me." Zarkon's amused chuckle broke through the growing dreamy haze clouding Keith's brain as Lance reached out awkwardly and slipped a tied hand into his. 

"Young love. Isn't it something?" Haggar nodded beside the emperor.

"He's just like his father, so infatuated by the charms of humans." 

"I can't say I'll ever understand why," Sendak added, raising a scrutinizing brow at the two teenagers. Lance stuck his tongue out at him, and he scowled. 

"Uncle, be nice," Keith pleaded. 

"Yes, Uncle," Zarkon echoed threateningly. "Be  _nice._ " The commander seemed to relent, standing back at attention as Zarkon motioned for the two boys to join him on the stage. From the elevated viewpoint, everyone suddenly looked smaller, as though Keith could strike them down in one blow.  _I guess this is where all his confidence comes from. If I stood on something like this every day, I'd feel in charge of the universe too._

"Let it be known that today stands as a monumental day in the history of our Empire," his grandfather roared, clearly using the power of the stage to its full extent as the crowd fell to a hush. "For today is the day that our heir returns to us after many years lost." He took the hand that wasn't holding Lance's in his own calloused one, and raised it high above Keith's head, a triumphant smile spreading across his wrinkled face. "Today, a new star dawns above the Galra Empire, one rife with victory that smiles down upon my legacy. Today, our Prince Keith has come home!"

The crowd erupted into deafening cheers at the end of Zarkon's speech, making both Lance and Keith wince. The latter's ears folded flat against his head before disappearing altogether, though the change did nothing to mute the ringing chants of "all hail Prince Keith!" as his human ears took their place. 

He felt a firm squeeze on one of his hands, and he instinctively looked to his grandfather. He showed no signs of communication, instead grinning the same fanged smile that never quite seemed to reach his eyes.  _Maybe it's a side effect of turtle-face. Oh god, that's not going to happen to me, is it? I might need to start moisturizing more. I wonder if the Galra have made any headway in conquering the space lotion industry. I'll have to ask._

He looked to Lance, who was staring at him, his navy eyes wide and dark with concern. Keith's eyes darted from the raucous crowd to Lance, and before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled the taller boy closer and pressed their foreheads together, the contact between them soft and careful. He felt the eyes of the assembled crowd on them, and his other hand fell to his side as Zarkon dropped it with an amused chuckle. 

Lance began to pull back at the sudden intimacy, a knee-jerk reaction to...well, anything involving him and Keith in a close situation. But Keith's hold on his hand was like smelted iron, warm and binding, and he found himself relaxing into the position as Keith leaned towards his ear. 

"Don't worry," he whispered to him, the loose ends of his hair brushing Lance's cheeks just enough to tickle. "Nothing's going to happen to you as long as I'm here." A dark blush painted Lance's cheeks as Keith echoed his words to his Lion from what felt like hours before; sure, he'd pretended — pretended? Sure, he'll go with that. — to want them directed at him before to mess with him, but now that they were?  _Jesus._ His brain tripped over a few ways to answer him: he could thank him, but that might be too formal, too stiff. A cocky answer would probably just get him punched, and that wouldn't look good for their new relationship status.

Besides, he didn't really want to mess with Keith, not now. He wanted to see the dark-haired boy smile, to find a way to make him comfortable with all of the bullshittery flying around in their lives right now and let him know that he had a home in him; it was a protective feeling, the same one that bubbled up inside of him when one of his younger siblings was being bullied or when the Garrison maggots wouldn't stop calling Hunk "Chunky Hunky" and he had to dunk their faces one by one into the garbage chute. It wasn't even much of a realization for him: it was a fact that came into being there against Keith's forehead as easily as he recalled his own name.

But Keith didn't know that yet; he _couldn't_ possibly know that yet, and it was evident in the way Keith held his hand like he would run away any moment.  

Lance just hoped that the kiss he pressed into Keith's hair got the message across.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tHIS CHAPTER TOOK 300 YEARS IM SORRY  
> it used to be easier to write these in class, but school's ramped up the work amount, not to mention band practice is kicking my ass, but don't worry! i have every intention to keep writing! ...even if it takes me forever.
> 
> oh, and theremayormaynotbeanewklanceauficonthehorizon...stay tuned. 
> 
> hit me up on tumblr, tell me what you think! :3 palidont.tumblr.com


	5. An Announcement!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick announcement from me to you! :)

Hi, everybody!

I want to start by thanking you all for keeping this story alive after all this time! It really does mean to world to me to receive notifications telling me someone is still enjoying P+J despite all that has changed within the show!

That being said, I just wanted to properly announce that I have no plans to continue the _**current storyline**_ of P+J. This fic was originally planned between seasons 1 and 2 of Voltron, and as those who are caught up know, we have learned so much since then! I personally feel that it would be a detriment to the story if I continued trying to write it as if nothing had changed (For example, in the context of this fic, Lotor is Keith’s father, and to be honest that just weirds me out to high heaven).

However, I’m making this announcement not to discourage any of you lovely, patient people, but to ask a question! Without further ado, here goes!

Would anyone be interested in a reworking of this story?

There would still be Galra!Keith of course, and he would still be a form of nobility, but what’s that? An arranged marriage? Past life angst carrying into the present day? **_More mutually pining Klance???_**

Okay but for real, I’m in the process of editing what was once Pride and Joy to become an entirely new story! Thank you so much for continuing to enjoy P+J as it is, the reception it’s gotten is like none I’ve ever received before! But I’ve improved my storytelling since it was last updated, and I feel you readers deserve a fic that reflects that!

Again, thank you so much for your patience and support! Please leave a comment at your leisure on what you think of the idea of a rework, I’d love to hear from you!

\- strifery 


End file.
